Although dirt roads are popular in both rural and urban settings because they may be readily constructed at much less expense than paved roadways, a principal disadvantage of dirt roads is that they require frequent maintenance to remove irregularities such as depressions or pot-holes and surface ripples or ridges caused by vehicular traffic and weather conditions. Dirt roads in rural and farming area tend to deteriorate more quickly due to heavy agricultural machinery and truck use, particularly during spring thaws.
Road graders are typically used to re-level a dirt road surface. Although the grader's blade can scrape off the ripples and flatten the road surface, it only fills the pot-holes with relatively loose dirt or other road material. The road grader has no ability to compact the dirt in the pot-holes, and so the potholes tend to reappear soon after the road is re-leveled. A compactor, such as a road roller or steam roller, is required to properly pack such dirt filled depressions after grading, but it is rarely if ever employed due to added manpower, machinery and maintenance costs.
What is desired therefore is a novel apparatus which overcomes the limitations and problems of prior art graders. Preferably it should provide a fairy simple, portable and low cost attachment mountable to a road grader for working a ground surface (such as a dirt or gravel road), namely smoothing out and compacting the surface, as the grader moves along the surface. The attachment should be readily mountable to the road grader's blade and be able to pivot therewith to allow an operator to select a desired orientation of the blade and attachment relative to the surface being worked. The attachment should allow the operator, without the aid of others, to readily mount and dismount the attachment onto and off of the blade. The attachment's position on to the blade may be adjustable to accommodate various rollers.